She is so beautiful

What fun it is to have a little girl. If only I could find more flowers that fit her head. I tried several from Michael's, but they were nearly as big as her noggin. This is the only one that looked decent. And it's a very homemade job. Keep your distance and it looks great. :)

I love this picture b/c of her smile. I don't love that it's so washed out b/c of the flash. Low lighting creates such a problem for me. I don't know how to adjust the settings on my camera to compensate for it. Even with a tripod, the object is still blurry b/c my target is always moving. Oh well. Until I figure it out I guess I have to live with it! :)





You think she's hungry?

Hurricane Fay

We're safe and sound.

This is the brunt of what we received. Little drizzles of rain and about 5mph winds. Thankfully, no evacuation was necessary and our food storage is still intact.

Lance's First Day of Kindergarten

Mixed feelings. I am happy for him, I really am. But we miss him at home. It's so sad for us. I didn't even cry. Until Brian called and asked me how I was doing.

Since we're only about a 1/2 mile away from the school, scooters seemed like a good idea. They both did a good job. For about an 1/8th of a mile. Then they wanted in the stroller.

Spencer was so anxious to get Lance by the end of the day. He asked about him several times and at one point started crying and tearfully shouted, "Where is my brother Lance?! I want my brother Lance!" It was so sad and actually almost made me cry. This is going to be a hard adjustment for both of us.
He did NOT want to leave that door. But all the kids were outside.

"WHERE is my Lance brother?!"

Finally together again.

Lance wanted to introduce Spencer to his teacher (the one in the red to the right).

It isn't surprising that his first backpack is a transformer pack.

This is how we roll.

I know, it doesn't make sense that Ivy gets a seat all to herself. She is the smallest after all. :)

It made me happy to see this. On our walk home Lance wanted to put his arm around Spencer.

They are SO best friends.

Legos

I'm really glad the boys like them.

lately.

lance is 5 now.


my mom and sister came to visit july 27th. we went to disneyworld with them for my b-day. it was a great time. thanks mom and dad, what a great present. :) oh, and by the way, remember this, . . . yeah, they got me those for my b-day too. um yeah, they were gone the next day. told you so--no power against them.


ivy is still an amazing baby. she slept 10 hrs. last night!


we still love the beach.

Indian in the Cupboard

Lance and Spencer are reading their very first chapter book! O.K., so Brian and I are reading it to them, but they love it! I always forget how much we can learn from books, whether fiction or not, and have been reminded of how extremely important it is to read to my children. Lance has learned several new words, one of which being teepee. He asked what it was and Brian drew him a picture, the larger version on the right. Then Lance drew his own teepee on the left. Once again we're proud of our little artist.


I found this picture today, I'm pretty sure it's from earlier in the week. I'm also pretty sure it's a motorcycle. So hilariously cute.

Details, Details

Lance has always loved to draw, he has a keen eye for detail. We only wish we would have purchased a scanner sooner. (Click pictures to enlarge)

In this picture he drew a castle with a mote (he has never seen this, we've only talked to him about it). In the mote is an alligator with a bone in it's stomach and another alligator with a fish. On the bottom left you'll see a hose with water coming out (to fill up the mote). I am there with Brian--who's holding Ivy, Lance and Spencer. Next to us on the left is a squirrel with balloons. To the right of the mote is an elephant. Inside the castle is the king, and the key for the treasure chest is above his head. The treasure chest is in the room next to the king. And there is a cloud that's blocking the sun.



A truck, car and tractor with mountains. Look at the little man in his seat maneuvering the shifter knobs! haha


A spider in it's web, about to eat a bee. I asked him what kind of spider it is and he says it's a wolf spider. And the funny thing about his name is he always writes, "LanceKE4," (4 is backwards). I asked him about it and he said, "my name is Lance Kisby so the K is for Kisby and E4 is where we live." How clever. He remembered our apartment number and it's how he identifies himself--even though we've moved!


This is a Transformer. He really wanted a transformer cake for his birthday. So, I made a cake, frosted it yellow (for bumblebee) and drew the transformer logo with black frosting. Easy way out, but he really lik ed it. Anyway, he saw the cake and the next day he drew this:


This is a sawtooth shark, batman, superman, a power ranger, and a messed up power ranger (that's what he told me), and a squid.


We are amazed at the detail of his work. Some of these things he's only seen a couple of times and recalls the image in his mind several months after he saw them, and then draws them (like the saw fish!). Some of these things we've only talked about and he imagines what it must be like and draws it accordingly. He's really talented. Allison (and Matthew and Davis) intuitively gifted Lance a sketch pad, colored pencils and transformer stickers for his birthday! There is seriously nothing better to Lance than a drawing pad and some sort of writing utensil!

So you fancy fancy cards huh?

Then check this out!

Gina's Art

Gina's Etsy Shop

Gina is a friend of mine from Boston, just starting her first Etsy shop! Yay! I'm so excited for her, she's so talented.

Ivy :: 5 1/2 weeks old

I can't believe she's already lifting her head. Not that she shouldn't be, I just wish she would stay a new born. Just another year, that's all. She's much more engaged with her surroundings now. She makes eye contact. She pushes her legs like crazy and can move about 6" from where I lay her down. She knows when she's ready to sleep and screams at me with her tired little eyes to lay her down for a nap. She's just barely starting to smile. All babies smile, for who knows what reason, but she's really smiling. Not on command, but that's o.k. (I just noticed this yesterday). She holds her head up when I'm holding her. She weighed in at 8 lbs. 12 oz. last week. It's all just happening way too fast.


My sweet little Ivy. I love this girl so much.

Building Faith

When we planned our relocation to Florida, we had to plan around a lot of uncertainty, mainly when Ivy would be born. We knew the housing would be provided by Honeywell, but there was quite a bit of stuff we would need to bring down to make our 7 months in Florida comfortable (computers, clothes, bikes, pictures, tools, towels, books, etc.), so we had to think of a way to get the bare minimum stuff down there. Well, bare minimum stacks up quickly, and we still needed to actually get it down here.

Since our new van had a dealership warrantee on the engine and transmission, we didn't want to tow our stuff with the van, thinking that by so doing we would void the ability to exercise a repair claim (if anything did break down on the transmission in the first 5000 miles). Having the stuff shipped there was expen$ive, so we decided it would be best to use our old 1992 Honda Civic (265K miles!). Since we didn't really know when Ivy would be born, we didn't know how healed and able to drive I would be when we had to leave on June 10th, so we decided Brian would fly back a following weekend and drive down our stuff in another trip. (Sorry for the long story, but we had to background this story to justify our craziness for using an old compact to tow our stuff).

For trip one, we drove from Boston to Florida as a family in our van, and the trip took 5 days to get here (4 driving days, and one day stopping at a mission friend's house in Georgia to relax and recharge). This trip was semi-leisurely, stopping frequently for nursing breaks, gasoline, bathroom breaks, and overnight hotel stays. For Brian's second trip, he had only a 2 day weekend, in which time he had to fly back, pack the trailer from our storage unit, then drive the google-maps estimated 1365 miles towing a 2,000 lb. trailer! (Does this sound risky to anyone else?)

So, he arrived in Boston around midnight on Friday, slept a few hours at a friend's apartment where we used to live, woke up early Saturday morning to pick up the trailer from Uhaul, drove to storage, transferred some of our goods to the trailer, and finally rolled out of Boston around 11a.m. So far, all is well . . .

...until about 35 miles outside of Boston when the Check Engine light came on. This had happened a few times before a couple months prior to leaving Boston. Nothing ever came of it then though, so he just decided to keep on trucking. (After all, it was Saturday, no mechanic's place would be open until Monday anyway, and he had work on Monday. "Plus," he reasoned, "Check Engines come on for anything as small as a backfire or combustion misfire...they're more a suggestion.")

Towing a 2000 lb+ load with a 1.5 liter engine is usually not a good idea. (Brian edited this next part for technical accuracy:) The engine was running just as warm, according to the gauge, but the transmission (and gear shift knob) was really hot. At around 400 miles, the engine started developing serious hesitations and stalls in 5th gear. He was starting to get really worried. If the car up and died, he would be stuck far from all friends and relatives who could rescue him, 1000 miles to go, and less than 2 days to get to Florida. Sure, his boss would understand if he missed the first two days of the week, right? So, he just switched to 4th gear for the rest of the 1000 mile trip ("a better towing gear anyway because the gear ratio is 1:1 and fewer gears are involved so less power loss and heat generation"..? ). This meant he averaged about 50 mph. (only important b/c it made for a much longer trip). 4th gear had the same problems, but only under heavy load (hills or passing--yes, he said he actually passed 3 slower cars over the whole trip).

At this point we decided to make a deal with Heavenly Father: "Just let the car make it to Florida, that's all. If it never works again, no problem, just let it make it to Florida. If it is going to need repairs, just let it die in Florida." This is what both of us (Brian driving, me in Florida) continued to pray the rest of the trip.

His plan was to stop at a cheap motel Saturday night, catch some Zzz's, and finish the trip on Sunday. Didn't quite go that way. (He didn't tell me this until he returned home--curse those little white lies). He wanted to get as far as he could as soon as he could in case the car died, giving more time for a rescue from Florida if necessary. After hours of driving a sputtering car he did finally pull over at a Motel 6 . . . parking lot . . . and slept in the car . . . for about an hour and a half. Dangerous business I tell ya, but adrenaline does crazy things.

So, upon waking up he put some fuel cleaner in the car and resumed his trip (for fear the car might not start up if he waited any longer). The cleaner did help, but did not eliminate the problems. (Think hours and hours of driving, no AC, little sleep, towing a heavy trailer). So, 15 hours of driving later, he did finally make it to Clearwater about 6pm Sunday evening, the last two hours of which, the engine was really having even more serious hesitations and loss of power.

After unloading, the car almost didn't start, but we said our prayers of gratitude and counted our blessings. Then we realized we still had one problem: we needed to return the trailer. So, we decided to revise our "deal": "Thank you for blessing us. Yes, Brian and the car made it here, but if you could please let it work 2 more times, 1 to return the uhaul and get Brian to work, and 2 to get Brian back home from work, then it can die." He started the car up Monday morning, returned the Uhaul, drove to work and started it up to return home that evening.

The car hasn't worked since.

We've learned 2 things from this:

1. Heavenly Father answers prayers and we're really thankful for that.

2. Next time we should pray that the car should never die. (but if this happened, it wouldn't make for a very exciting story).

Seriously though, these are the kind of blessings that continue to build our faith. (Especially Brian, since he was the one driving) :)

She likes to sleep

But on a good day, I catch her with her eyes open.

Gotta Love Goggles

I was excited to find goggles in the $1 section at target and bought 2 pair for my boys. I was excited, that is, until they broke. After the first use. So, I broke down and bought the speedo goggles from Costco. So far, so good. Spencer's so cute here. I love how the goggles push up his eye brows and how he scrunches his nose.

We had a great time at Alison's pool. Until it turned sad.

Yeah, even the pool has a time-out chair.

Luckily Alison had crackers to revive the good time! Thanks Alison!

A Budding Super Hero

What little boy doesn't like super heros? O.K., don't answer that. My kids love 'em. Lance has taken a particular interest in Ben Ten. Ben Ten is not the typical super hero, it's a cartoon on the cartoon network (I hate that channel). He has never seen the cartoon, only previews for it. Apparently Ben Ten has a magic/power watch of some sort and Lance really, really wants one. In an effort to save money and more importantly encourage creativity I tell him to make his own watches. He's clever. He surprises me most of the time. And the "ingredients" are always things I would never think of. (Another good reason to "forget" to take out the trash . . . )

He used part of an apple container from Costco and the rest you can see for yourself. He even cut the plastic by himself. I'm telling you, this kid's got sKilLs! He's made probably 20 different watches (not caught on camera). He's really creative. I'm glad about that.